Letters to the editor

The green fog

Two fronts collide: Will we rescue drivers or Mother Nature?

Editor, The Times:

To publish together "Keeping it real on the 520 bridge" and "Frozen climate talks" [Times editorials, Nov. 7] drips with irony. In the first, you bemoan the concept of a six-lane 520 bridge with no additional single-occupancy-vehicle capacity but much more people-moving capacity. You conclude growth in our region will occur and the only way to accommodate that growth is to provide more lanes for single-occupancy vehicles.

The second editorial attests that the U.S. is the biggest producer of greenhouse gases and calls upon our country to assume some leadership in reducing these pollutants, while noting that some states, including ours, are in the forefront of legislating reductions.

However, we can't have it both ways. We cannot continue to demand a single-occupancy-vehicle lifestyle and reduce pollutants in a meaningful way.

Public transit must occupy a greater share of our roadways or we will be left with only the memory of a white Mount Rainier.

— Tom Alexander, Lake Forest Park

Swerve to the left side

Leave it to The Times to worship at the foot of Kyoto, even when it was as flawed a treaty as could ever be negotiated. Not even Bill Clinton introduced it for ratification. The European Union loved it because it was reaping the artificial benefits of the collapse of Eastern European economies and their pollution.

Real answers to "global warming" will never survive the screeds that paint dire pictures without radical redistribution of wealth and economic disruption. The latest forecast from Great Britain is economic garbage riddled with a hole big enough to drive a Hummer through.

— Robert Avant, Kirkland

Factor in visibility

The Times' attempts to create a state of fear by claiming disasters will occur as a result of human inaction to control greenhouse gases. The evidence points to perfectly natural phenomena affecting climate change. A recent experimental study shows that the sun's activity, creating cosmic rays, can stimulate the creation of moisture and cloud formations in the troposphere.

Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas. It is responsible for about 90 percent of the global temperature change and for our stable temperature here on Earth. CO2 is barely responsible for 5 percent of Earth's temperature stability.

The 1880 atmospheric level of CO2 was 280 ppmv [parts per million by volume]. The present level of CO2 is 380 ppmv. Studies show a quadrupling of CO2 levels from the year 1880 level of 280 ppmv to 1120 ppmv is estimated to cause a temperature increase of between 1.3º C and 3.0º C. The predictions of larger temperature increases come from computer models using questionable input data.

Governments and science should be separate. Let's keep all governments out of the environmental business. And, be wary of self-serving environmental groups.

The Times is putting its trust in government science. Not good.

— Jack Leicester (professional engineer), Shoreline

Catastrophe just ahead

As usual, The Times assumes greenhouse gases are the main cause of global warming and that humanity should reduce them. Looming catastrophe attracts more readers than uncertainty, and the notion that we can do something makes advocates of that something feel good. But the case has not been made.

Few argue that the Earth is not getting warmer, but a chart in the Astrophysics Journal showed that the temperature of the Earth over the past 300 years matches the fluctuating amount of solar radiation it received exactly. Greenhouse gases may contribute to warming, but their contribution is very small.

The result of dramatically reducing the amount of energy we use a la Kyoto would be catastrophic. Moreover, greenhouse gases have almost certainly contributed to the enormous increase in agricultural productivity worldwide. Also, many climatologists say any warming will be gradual and mostly beneficial.

Until we can accurately predict the result of reducing greenhouse gases, if any, arbitrarily reducing energy use to cure global warming is as crazy as undergoing a painful, dangerous and untested treatment to cure an undiagnosed ailment.

— Ed Davis, Issaquah

A crowd gathers

Don't just stand there

Thanks for writing about "the estimated 1.4 million new neighbors in the next decade or so" and the League of Women Voters of Washington recent report ["How to love thy neighbors, all 1.4 million," Editorial Page Editor James Vesely column, Nov. 5].

That we live in such a wonderful place as Puget Sound illustrates the double-edged-sword circumstances we face. Population growth is not just about migration shifts in and out, but is also self-generated.

Vesely's final paragraph about the loss of 100,000 acres of King County farmland is certainly telling. Also telling is the deficiency of funding by the state (aka Legislature and citizens) for existing open space and state parks maintenance, leading to the current review process (CAMP), an element of which provides for the potential privatization of parts of the state park system (think Saint Edward State Park).

These dynamics require that citizens get and stay involved. Get what you want, rather than getting what you get.

— William Leak, Kenmore

Find help

James Vesely, report immediately to ninth grade! You need a refresher on Washington geography.

Okanogan County is not "in the far northeast part of Washington." Talk about a westsider having a warped view of the state. Okanogan County covers the north central part of the state. It lies west of Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties. Its western border touches Whatcom and Skagit counties.

Now go to the chalkboard and write 100 times: "Next time I will get a map."

— Fred Jessett, Sammamish

Then came the rain

Now the rates will pile up

In light of all the massive flooding and the release of water from the Mud River Dam on the White River, could the voters approving I-937 [for renewable power sources] explain to me why hydropower is now considered a nonrenewable source of power? Will the committee that pushed I-937 reimburse me when my power bill goes up?

— P. Gregory Voyk, Everett